Quotes of the day

posted at 10:43 pm on August 9, 2012 by Allahpundit

[W]hen will they know? And when will the rest of us know? There’s a school of thought in the extended Romney camp that the identity of the pick will dictate the timing of the announcement. A choice that is more exciting to the Republican base, and to the GOP convention delegates, can be announced late, even at the convention itself, because it will instantly excite Republican loyalists. No need for an extended sales campaign. But a pick that is less exciting to the base might be announced earlier, to give Romney time to build support for his choice.

“If he picks Rubio, he could do that the day before the convention, and it would electrify the convention and be exciting,” says one source who is familiar with the campaign but not part of the vice presidential process. “[The delegates] want Rubio, or maybe Christie, or perhaps Paul Ryan. But if he chooses Portman or Pawlenty, he should do it enough in advance so that he doesn’t immediately go in and disappoint the convention. It gives him time to sell his choice.”

***

“[Ryan] is the kind of smart, young guy that Mitt likes and Mitt would have probably hired at Bain,” says Mike Murphy, a former Romney adviser. “He shares the intellectual talent and positive outlook of the guys who Mitt mentored for decades.”…

According to Romney insiders, Romney deeply appreciated Ryan’s willingness to privately share his critique of the campaign during the heated Republican primary, where Romney often struggled to make his case. As he watched from afar, long before he endorsed, Ryan drafted a series of detailed strategy and policy advisories, and discussed them with Romney over the phone. For Romney, those corporate-style memos made a lasting impression — and catapulted Ryan into Romney’s circle, where he has remained since.

“Both men are intelligent and very empirically minded, driven by facts,” says Peter Wehner, a friend of Ryan’s and a former Bush and Reagan administration official. “When he looks at Ryan, Romney probably sees somebody like himself, a person he’d want at his side in the business world or the political world. They approach complicated problems the same way.”

***

The case against Ryan, 42, is that he is a lightning rod for criticism of the unpopular cuts in government health programs for the elderly and poor he proposed as chairman of the powerful House of Representatives Budget Committee

Such a debate, they believe, could elevate the campaign beyond questions that are consuming it now, about Romney’s unwillingness to disclose more than two years of tax returns for example, or his leadership of the investment firm, Bain Capital…

“It turns the election into an all-in bet,” the aide said, adding, “The concern is that when you go all in, you can lose and be out of the game.”

***

The question, it seems to us, is not whether Republicans and their presidential nominee own the Ryan budget, but how they choose to talk about it. Republicans shouldn’t worry about having entitlement reform as part of the campaign debate; they should want it there. The 2012 campaign should be about leadership, and about the failure of Barack Obama to provide it on the big issues, including – especially – on entitlement reform, debt, and deficits. It’s no longer the case that talking about entitlements is fatal. Marco Rubio ran on entitlement reform and won decisively … in senior-rich Florida. The more Rubio talked about entitlement reform, in fact, the better he did, according the campaign’s internal tracking polls. Congressional Republicans voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Ryan budget twice and yet they are effectively tied with congressional Democrats on the generic ballot question…

[T]he loud, public calls for Mr. Ryan to emerge as the winner demonstrate again the wariness with which conservatives have always treated Mr. Romney. They suggest that there remains a desire among some conservatives for Mr. Romney to demonstrate that he is, in fact, one of them…

[T]he conservatives are also looking past the November election to the kind of White House they want should Mr. Romney win. For some conservatives — especially those who identify themselves with the Tea Party movement — winning is not enough.

For some of those conservatives, a Romney administration stocked with moderate Republicans is almost as bad as a second term for Mr. Obama.

***

The clamor you are hearing for Paul Ryan for VP is not about helping the Romney candidacy. It’s about controlling the Romney campaign — and ultimately the Romney presidency. It’s about forcing a platform on Romney, and then dictating the agenda for that presidency’s first year. The platform happens to be suicidal, and the agenda impossible, but that does not matter to the Ryan advocates. They take the old Tammany Hall point of view: “Better to lose an agenda than lose control of the party.”

In that sense, the Ryan proposal is a test of Romney’s leadership. If he accedes, it’s a big surrender of control — and a surrender to many of those who most opposed (and who inwardly continue to dislike) his nomination.

***

But the smaller, more Machiavellian point is that Ryan is Romney’s best chance to diffuse the blame if he loses this election. If Romney chooses the proverbial “incredibly boring white guy” and then goes down in November, conservatives will place the blame squarely on Romney’s shoulders: He was a flip-flopping, Massachusetts Moderate with a cautious campaign and a car garage. The narrative, in fact, is already set. In July, the Wall Street Journal editorial page accused Romney of “slowly squandering an historic opportunity.” They would simply have to change “squandering” to “squandered.” And Romney knows it.

But if Romney chooses Ryan — if he makes this the “big election over big issues” that the Wall Street Journal editorial page wants — then his loss will be their loss as well. He’ll still be blamed, of course. But the fact will remain that he took conservative counsel, adopted conservative ideas, named a conservative hero as his vice president, ran on the Ryan budget, and lost to a liberal. The right will not be able to pretend they weren’t on the ticket. They will have chosen the ticket. The right will not be able to say Romney ran a cautious campaign. They will have cranked his campaign’s strategy up to 11.

What’s less clear is what conservatives get out of the deal, save the opportunity to see Ryan debate Joe Biden. If Ryan is named to the ticket and the ticket loses, the loss will discredit the Ryan budget, and empower those in the Republican Party who want to pivot back to the center. Whereas conservatives have some chance of winning the intraparty argument if Romney/Portman loses — “we shouldn’t have nominated the insincere moderate,” they’ll say — they have little chance of arguing that the Republican Party simply didn’t run hard enough on the Ryan budget if Romney/Ryan loses.

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Ryan is who the Democrats are scared of. The guy fights back and has a knack for describing complicated topics in a way that everyone can relate. Reminds me a little of Reagan in this respect. He was someone that took liberals to task as well.

Really though, the Obama campaign is in full panic mode. The polls are skewing the D/R/I so far that soon, they’ll have to give Obama 50% Dems and it still won’t be enough to get 50% in the poll.

MrX on August 9, 2012 at 11:23 PM

If Romney does go with Ryan(and he remains my top choice for VP), the campaign better be prepared to unleash him on every single alphabet and cable news show out there. DO NOT put a muzzle on him and overly script him the way the McCain camp did with Palin. Otherwise don’t waste our time and just go with a milquetoast squish like Portman or T-Paw.

There is no reason to change the subject and have an entitlement debate now. When people are asked if we need to cut entitlements, they say yes. when asked if we should cut THEIR entitlments, they say hell no. Obama won on an incredibly specific platform of hopenchange. Would he have won if he ran on socializing healthcare? He did that after he conned the masses. We need to win, and hopefully win big with a mandate to cut govt to the bone and implicitly deal with entitlements. no need to trumpet that now. just win baby.

Philly- than you better work harder getting the message out that all the entitlements will end themselves. No money.

You know, it’s a simple premise. Any successful gubmint program must end. By definition. Because it solved the problem it was created to fix. Otherwise you go broke, and by definition, those programs don’t work.

There is no reason to change the subject and have an entitlement debate now. When people are asked if we need to cut entitlements, they say yes. when asked if we should cut THEIR entitlments, they say hell no. Obama won on an incredibly specific platform of hopenchange. Would he have won if he ran on socializing healthcare? He did that after he conned the masses. We need to win, and hopefully win big with a mandate to cut govt to the bone and implicitly deal with entitlements. no need to trumpet that now. just win baby.

phillysfinest on August 9, 2012 at 11:34 PM

There’s one small problem with that theory. It’s been tried before by Dubya in 2005 and it was a disaster. He never ran for reelection trumpeting Social Security reform, yet that was the first thing he attempted out of the gate after his 2nd inauguration and the Dems destroyed him over it. He was effectively a lameduck after the double whammy of that and Katrina.

If Romney and Ryan(or whomever his VP will be) are planning to institute major reforms to entitlements, they better damn well run on that platform. Because to hide that during the general election or couch it a bunch vague platitudes invites demagoguery from the Dems and accusations of pulling a bait and switch on the voters(particularly seniors).

i get the word out every day. but have you ever heard mitt make that argument? or any of his surrogates. i haven't. that is the problem. our team is not so great at getting some simple messages out. for example, if bain didn't rescue those companies then ALL employees would have lost their jobs. never heard romney make that counter argument. its not my job to get the word out, it's team romneys. but you miss my main point: we don't need to bring it up. it is a political loser like raising taxes. just make the election about obama and economy. we win.

If Romney loses it will destroy Romney. But so far as Ryan is concerned he will go down as the one that came close to saving Mitt Romney.

Steveangell on August 9, 2012 at 11:43 PM

If Romney loses(especially if it’s bad, like Obama getting over 300 EVs), it doesn’t matter who his VP is. The ones who are gonna get the heat are Romney and the GOP establishment. I don’t care how horrible Obama’s 2nd term is and how seemingly winnable the Republican power brokers may believe the White House will be in 2016, if they think for one second they can force another moderate candidate like McCain or Romney(or frankly Bush for that matter) on the base and not cause a fullscale revolt by the Tea Party, they’re delusional.

Romney better win this for his sake, the sake of the Republican Party, and obviously the sake of our nation.

What’s less clear is what conservatives get out of the deal, save the opportunity to see Ryan debate Joe Biden. If Ryan is named to the ticket and the ticket loses, the loss will discredit the Ryan budget, and empower those in the Republican Party who want to pivot back to the center. Whereas conservatives have some chance of winning the intraparty argument if Romney/Portman loses — “we shouldn’t have nominated the insincere moderate,” they’ll say — they have little chance of arguing that the Republican Party simply didn’t run hard enough on the Ryan budget if Romney/Ryan loses.

And if they win….

Well if they win then Romney will have no choice but to follow up on what he ran on and we actually might not tumble off of the fiscal cliff. If we win with Ryan on the ticket it shows that 2010 was more than a backlash against Obama, it was a backlash against liberalism. If we win Mitt Romney will have bridged the divide between old-school conservatives that were cautious and new conservatives, those who were born, but couldn’t vote, or about to be born when Reagan was elected who want to fight liberalism rather than bargain with it.

Hah, I hope not, but they wouldn’t be in the communications pickle they’re in…though the Mitt-adherents around here would have ‘heart attacks and aneurysms’…but we’d win, or we’d give it our soul trying, and the degenerates, with the Chief of them all, would not skate like they do.

Imagine telling the media to their faces that what they consume is Obama’s sh*t, figurative and real, not Beluga caviar, fools.

Remember, during the primary, when Mitt was on the ropes to Newt in Carolina and he pulled out the “How does a Romney/Rubio ticket sound?!” If only he had added “…cause it ain’t gonna happen!” I’d had respected him more. But then again, that’s Mitt.

Philly- so you are suggesting we plan to do it, but just don’t run on it? Like a secret agenda?

We may lose. I’d rather lose sticking to principle. If 51% want to run us broke, there’s not much we can do about it, I guess. But I’m not in to ignoring one helluva problem. Ignoring issues because the left is good at playing the scare game. That’s how we got here. By being scared to deal with it, and now time is running out. That’s what Ryan is saying. And he is right.

Thanks, Can !
In the midst of Arlington (smack dab between D & FW, Tarrant county)… we’re ALL on alert for ANY weirdly flu-like symptoms, which = getteth to the hospital, ASAP !!
Can be tackled, IF tackled EARLY !!